The Unvanquished Read Free Page B

floor while Granny opened the book. “What shall we read about today?” she said.
    “Read about cake,” I said.
    “Very well. What kind of cake?” Only she didn’t need to say that because Ringo was already answering that before she spoke:
    “Cokynut cake, Granny.” He said coconut cake every time because we never had been able to decide whether Ringo had ever tasted coconut cake or not. We had had some that Christmas before it started and Ringo had tried to remember whether they had had any of it in the kitchen or not, but he couldn’t remember. Now and then I used to try to help him decide, get him to tell me how it tasted and what it looked like and sometimes he would almost decide to risk it before he would change his mind. Because he said that he would rather just maybe have tasted coconut cake without remembering it than to know for certain he had not; that if he were todescribe the wrong kind of cake, he would never taste coconut cake as long as he lived.
    “I reckon a little more wont hurt us,” Granny said.
    The rain stopped in the middle of the afternoon; the sun was shining when I stepped out onto the back gallery, with Ringo already saying, “Where we going?” behind me and still saying it after we passed the smokehouse where I could see the stable and the cabins: “Where we going now?” Before we reached the stable Joby and Loosh came into sight beyond the pasture fence, bringing the mules up from the new pen. “What we ghy do now?” Ringo said.
    “Watch him,” I said.
    “Watch him? Watch who?” I looked at Ringo. He was staring at me, his eyeballs white and quiet like last night. “You talking about Loosh. Who tole us to watch him?”
    “Nobody. I just know.”
    “Bayard, did you dream hit?”
    “Yes. Last night. It was Father and Louvinia. Father said to watch Loosh, because he knows.”
    “Knows?” Ringo said. “Knows what?” But he didn’t need to ask that either; in the next breath he answered it himself, staring at me with his round quiet eyes, blinking a little: “Yestiddy. Vicksburg. When he knocked hit over. He knowed it then, already. Like when he said Marse John wasn’t at no Tennessee and sho enough Marse John wasn’t. Go on; what else did the dream tole you?”
    “That’s all. To watch him. That he would know beforewe did. Father said that Louvinia would have to watch him too, that even if he was her son, she would have to be white a little while longer. Because if we watched him, we could tell by what he did when it was getting ready to happen.”
    “When what was getting ready to happen?”
    “I dont know.” Ringo breathed deep, once.
    “Then hit’s so,” he said. “If somebody tole you, hit could be a lie. But if you dremp hit, hit cant be a lie case aint nobody there to tole hit to you. So we got to watch him.”
    We followed them when they put the mules to the wagon and went down beyond the pasture to where they had been cutting wood. We watched them for two days, hidden. We realised then what a close watch Louvinia had kept on us all the time. Sometimes while we were hidden watching Loosh and Joby load the wagon we would hear her yelling at us and we would have to sneak away and then run to let Louvinia find us coming from the other direction. Sometimes she would even meet us before we had time to circle, and Ringo hiding behind me then while she scolded at us: “What devilment yawl into now? Yawl up to something. What is it?” But we didn’t tell her and we would follow her back to the kitchen while she scolded at us over her shoulder and when she was inside the house we would move quietly until we were out of sight again and then run back to hide and watch Loosh.
    So we were outside of his and Philadelphy’s cabin that night when he came out. We followed him down tothe new pen and heard him catch the mule and ride away. We ran, but when we reached the road too we could only hear the mule loping, dying away. But we had come a good piece, because